FELIPE LOPEZ?

Especially not the people that put the dollar values on Fangraphs pages.

What they are saying is that, in their best estimation, if the teams he played for last year tried to replace his production on the free agent market, they would have had to spend on average about $20.5 million to do it. Important qualifiers there: best estimation, free agent, and average. It’s hard to estimate players’ defensive contributions, and sometimes luck/fielding has an impact on hitting numbers. And free agents are expensive; even the Yankees couldn’t afford to compete without cost-controlled young players… and some free agents bust, and the cost of busts is factored into the average free-agent cost per win along with successes. Plus certain types of free agents tend to be valued above or below what the formula spits out for a lot of different reasons.

In Lopez’ case, UZR said he had the best season of his career defensively at an age at which that’s not likely to happen. So it’s likely that UZR’s best estimation of his defensive contribution in 2009 was overblown. It’s the best estimation they have, so they have to use it for 2009, but nobody is projecting that it will continue. His BABIP was 40 points over his career average last year, so luck was probably a big part of his offensive numbers, but they have to attribute them to him for WAR purposes because it’s too hard to separate luck from skill when it comes to a hitter’s BABIP. I’d say the “best estimation” probably included a fair amount of luck and measurement error.

Until we find better defensive metrics and a foolproof way to separate luck from hitting, we consider $20.5 mil to be a reflection of Lopez’ performance. But when deciding how much to pay him, clubs do something much more similar to projection. They say he’s unlikely to repeat that .358 BABIP and plus UZR, and without those things he’s more like an average player or worse. Which would make him worth at most $7 million in this offseason’s free agent market. But unless you’re a contender with money that needs a second baseman you’re not likely to offer even that. A hypothetical team likely to contend with an opening at 2B and some extra cash could probably sign him for less than $5 mil at this point, as there just aren’t that many suitors.